


What This Night Is Long

by lonelywalker



Series: A Particularly Bad Period in History [2]
Category: Miracle Workers (TV)
Genre: Cragnoor is both terrifying and terrifyingly sweet, Established Relationship, M/M, Power Dynamics, Sharing Body Heat, Vexler has a king kink, coda to 2x04, wildly anachronistic fantasy history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:14:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22835356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: “Chris…” The king’s voice was a gentle rebuke. “When did you ever get the impression I was civilized?”Medieval castles are really cold at night; fortunately, medieval kings are not.
Relationships: King Cragnoor/Lord Chris Vexler
Series: A Particularly Bad Period in History [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698502
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	What This Night Is Long

It was a dream before it was real: that blood-hot body curving against him, filling his frigid cocoon of blankets with a thick scent of leather and sweat; the low whisper of his name that tickled his ear and his brain; the long, rough fingers awakening sensations in his chest, his belly… When they wrapped around his thickening cock, Vexler woke up with a start, jolting a breath of shockingly cold air into his lungs. Only the very real, very warm and muscular arm around him stopped him from ripping back the sheets in surprise. 

“You should sleep in my bed,” said the king.

Vexler squinted in the almost-complete darkness and closed his eyes again, trying to settle back down into the warm hollow his body had made in however many hours had elapsed since he’d first crawled into bed, shivering and alone. But now he was on his back instead of curled over fetal, the king’s hand fisted around his cock, which felt like it was probably the center of the universe. 

“How was your… hunt?” He’d had to grapple for the word, wresting his attention from the slip-slide of skin down under the blankets, the king’s fingernails scraping his belly. 

“You’ll find out at the feast tomorrow night.” The king’s mouth was on his, then, tasting like all the darkness and decadence of wine, and Vexler felt himself relax the way Cragnoor always got him to relax - through the application of absolute strength and power that could have made every encounter terrifying and instead let Vexler surrender to pleasure without worrying about the consequences. 

Consequences, of course, had been the things rattling his nerves and putting a bitter taste in his mouth all day. “I may have issued a decree in your name for the summary execution of anyone named Peter.”

“Seems a tad extreme.”

“Speaking of which, I also replenished your bag of skulls.”

The king chuckled and pulled away. “A man after my own heart. Would that I had one.” His hand was slick with oil when it returned, stroking the softness of Vexler’s thighs, slipping two fingers right up inside him in a way that made Vexler tense abruptly and let out a keening moan, bending his knees. “Tell me you like that.”

“I do like that.” Vexler bit his bottom lip, his hips rocking, and he reached to give his cock a comforting stroke.

“I want you to know,” the king said, “I rode all the way back here with my cock hard as iron, because I couldn’t think of anywhere better to come than inside you.”

His fingers twisted, curled, and Vexler’s cock pulsed. “Sounds… sounds like a lot of chafing.”

“Sounds like you should join me on hunts in the future. Then I can fuck you against some great oak and spare us both the trouble.”

Vexler decided to store that little concept away to keep him warm on other winter nights. “Hunts, they’re not really my thing. All that noise, commotion… And it never seems like a fair fight. I mean, are you giving the boar a horse and a sword?”

“Why would I want a fair fight?” 

That, Vexler thought, was a good point. Personally he far preferred attacking his enemies by proxy, hundreds of miles away, while they were asleep. Which was also more or less how he preferred to get his dinner. “Maybe you should send Chauncley on the hunts and stay here with me, and we can fuck like civilized men.”

He knew the moment he said it that they were both imagining the boar roasting Chauncley on a spit.

“Chris…” The king’s voice was a gentle rebuke. “When did you ever get the impression I was civilized?”

Vexler wanted to say something cutting about the king’s love for fine wine, or the way he could audit Vexler’s math at a glance, or - mainly this - the way he’d insisted on writing half of the latest missive to the Valdrogians in Latin, which was probably why those barbarians hadn’t written back yet: they were busy trying to sack a library just so they could get their hands on a dictionary.

He wanted to do all that, but the king scooped an arm under his knee, lifting it up, and a pleasantly familiar cock was suddenly filling him, and Vexler breathed out right into the king’s mouth. “My king,” he said, two words that never failed to thrill them both, as he stroked himself to take the edge off the sudden, aching pressure inside him. “My king. _God_.”

In theory this was a good position for a nice, slow, relaxing fuck. And it was at least a little less intense than when Cragnoor bent him almost double and drove him, breathless and shuddering, into the mattress. But it was still so much - so, so much. No matter how often his nights began and ended with the king’s mouth and hands and cock, his skin still lit up like a bonfire when Cragnoor touched him, like lightning was dancing just beneath the surface. 

Vexler had watched the sword fighting drills on the castle grounds enough to know them by heart in a bland one-two-three fashion he knew had nothing to do with how battle actually went down. He had even had a couple of lessons himself, back when Cragnoor first gave him a sword to wear and he figured he might as well have a clue how to use it. But fighting was exhausting and painful and terrifying even if you were actually winning, which made it the worst pastime in existence.

What the instructor had told him was this: you cannot simply parry and block and dodge and focus on not dying. With a sword in your hands, you must be active, decisive, aggressive, always going forward until you’re either hip-deep in corpses or one of those poor souls yourself. 

Vexler had pretty much resigned himself to being one of those corpses the instant a battle got going. But Cragnoor, who wielded a sword in a way that was fluid and beautiful (until intestines got involved), was a master of the craft. Which would have been apparent from the way he fucked even if Vexler had never seen him touch a weapon. Cragnoor fucked to stay alive, with a relentless rhythm that made Vexler’s panting breaths quickly evolve into moans and then cries that echoed around cold stone walls neither of them could see. All Vexler could or wanted to do was get a hand on his head, work his fingers into that mess of gray-brown hair not constrained by a helmet or crown, and kiss him with some kind of illusion of control. 

He lifted his hand from his cock to stop himself from coming, settling for letting his fingertips brush his nipples. This was always the unbearable tension, between desperately needing to come and equally desperately wanting it to continue forever, between holding his breath as that deep pleasure blossomed and crying out into Cragnoor’s mouth at the practiced snap of his hips.

“Chris,” the king said suddenly, clear and real, and Vexler could feel the wave of tension in his body a moment before Cragnoor spilled out inside him, shaking and cursing and then grabbing for Vexler’s cock. Vexler barely needed the touch, but fuck if it wasn’t good to feel himself coming over the king’s hand as his ass clenched around the king’s cock, in these moments when the king was also very much a man, drained and sweaty and breathing hard.

“Do you get this way every time you kill something?” Vexler asked after a while, stretching out his cramping leg as Cragnoor softened and slipped out of him.

He could hear the king’s smile. “We shall see, shan’t we?”

They were the kind of wet, sticky disaster that would normally make Vexler’s skin crawl, but the very idea of running for water or new sheets was even more unpalatable. Better to stay right here, with the king’s arm and leg flung over him, Cragnoor’s breath in his hair.

“Chauncley got a job,” he said. If he slept, Cragnoor would be gone before dawn, before some sleepy-eyed servant appeared to light the fire. “Shoveling shit.”

Cragnoor barked out a surprised laugh. “Really? That’s… admirable.”

“Mm. I believe there was a not-insubstantial body count involved before he called it quits.”

“A body count?” Truthfully, it did sound insane. “My son continues to fill me with both crippling shame and utter confusion.”

Vexler yawned and snuggled into him a little more. “He’s not as dumb as you think. You underestimate him. There’s a good kid in there somewhere.”

“If I thought he were a simpleton I’d feel happier about his life choices.” The king absently stroked Vexler’s beard. “What really happened with that peace treaty?”

This was the inherent danger of post-coital chit-chat with a murderous tyrant. “Your grace… Believe me when I tell you, you truly do not want to know.” Words guaranteed to pique almost anyone’s curiosity.

Cragnoor said nothing for a long moment, his fingers continuing to prick up tiny hairs on Vexler's cheek. “Because it would mean no more nights like this? Don’t tell me you took leave of your senses and used a treaty to wipe your butt.”

“No. I was actually exceptionally heroic and gallant. But you still don’t want to know, and the only difference it would make is who you’ll be fucking next time.”

“If you think that's the sole difference your absence would make to me, then I’m not the only person who’s been underestimating someone. And I meant what I said. You should sleep in my bed. It’s warmer in there.”

Since the very first time they met, Cragnoor had always wound strands of both joy and fear tightly around Vexler’s heart. “Your grace, I am not-”

“Enough with the courtly etiquette,” Cragnoor snapped. He shifted and pulled Vexler tighter to him. “What you are, is mine. I wish you to be warm and happy and in my bed. If anyone wishes you were not, I have a bag of skulls to help explain the consequences to them.”

Vexler sighed and patted Cragnoor’s arm. “You’re the sweetest, most terrifying man I know. I wish to be warm and happy too, okay? But I also like sleeping in my own bed. And making you slum it once in a while and warm up my toes… Well, that’s good too. Plus you snore.”

“I do not,” the king said hotly, but his grip on Vexler relaxed just a bit as he buried his lips in Vexler’s hair. “Come to my chambers after the feast tomorrow. We’ll play chess by the fire.”

The warmth and lure of sleep was beginning to pull on Vexler, but he still had the wherewithal to smile: “No we won’t.”

“We’ll do something by the fire.” Cragnoor’s voice had dropped to a low murmur. He kissed Vexler on the temple. “Goodnight, dear heart.”

In the morning, his bed empty, Vexler would convince himself that those words had been real before they were a dream.


End file.
